Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1887-05-10
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Peculiar Part of Our nature.
Poetry Ike the Ancient Mariner
AS 20 Interpretation in the limits of
he understanding. Il appeals to differ
mt parts Of our nature. 1.-The moment /
sc are taken on that strange ship the
ctual and the unreal cease 10 have any
distinction. The ocean on which it |
; driven by spirit hand is Intimately
urther removed than the waters on
which the Spirit of God moved on the
morning Of creation, for it is removed |
lot in time. nor in space. merely, but |
n sphere Of existence. Does the mari
Ter represent soul adrift-a solitary,
excluded from natures great benef-
:ence and redeemed at last by the
spirit OF Love? Let it be so--or say
'ather, II you must interpret in the
icrman fashion--that the mariner is
he Spirit of Discomfort which wanders
ver the world and marks unerringly
he men on whom it can lay the
urden of its pain-the gnestionings,
he despair which torment noble souls:
pass like night, from the land, and
have strange power of speech;
The moment that his face / see,
know the man that must hear me-
To him my tale teach.
The wedding guests can not choose
mt hear. The "glittering eye" has
ooked into his soul, and the tumult
md joy and uproar Of the world recede,
become fla mt and far-a dance of shad-
'ws to spectral music; the bnxom, rud-
ly bride herself mere unsubstantial
phantom. and this voyage into the un-
Known. the startling, important reality.
No wonder that after he had heard it
He went like one that had been stunned,
And Is of sense forlorn
sadder and wiser man,
He rose the morrow's morn,
adder and wiser, as Dante was af-
er he had finished the ..Divina Com
media as the Shakespeare that wrote
Lear, was sadder and wiser than the
shakespeare that wrote Romeo and
Juliet" But OF all this mystical mean
ng the artist gave no hint, for the
sweet. little, childish morsal at the
md
He prayeth best who loveth best,
All things, both great and small
For the great God who loveth US,
He made aul loyeth all
merely q device to bring the reader
pack into the world of seEse. The
ooet places the under world the world
If new forces-squarely before you.
| You enter it, and then are set back in
| 1our own 'countree." The story is
old by one who has been there. 1t is
rue. The effect is produced by num-
PEERLESS cumulative touches, all of which,
IL the true ballad manner, are subordin-
tie to the narrative, which is of such
iovelty and power that we feel in hear
| ng it some of the strange uneasines'
hat affects animals on the approach of
IN eclipse. Experience fails. All our
knowledge we supposed wa, based on
experience Here is new sort o.
knowledge not based on experience
There is nothing comparable to the
Ancient Mariner. unless it be the ter
.or OF certain strins of music. Some
hing elemental throbs and tremblci
within us-the solid ground of expert
snce may yawn AMI let us down to I'M
known depths. where the tirmness o
he human soul is naught where cour
age is dissolved, aud will is powerless
The ideal q .ality of the 'Anc ent Mar
ner' isshown by the fact that it cal
aot be illustrated. Dore. a master o
gloom, of the sinister perspective o
olacI, masses. is powerless to represen
he phantom sh p. His prints aboy'
Jolleridge's verse merely spoil tn
ines. destroy the illusion or rattle
throw it up into the real world of bark
legged ships with wooden masts ant
igure heads, solid, and displacing S
many tons The Ancient Mariner"
he only poem which can never be il
ustrated. Coleridge called a painting
1.-THE intermediate something between
thought and Il thing" but this poem
les on the other side of thought,
The region of the sub conscious,
In thus stepping boldly outside th'
world of the senses Coleridge was
great poet, creator, an idealist. n
poet now attempts to do more tina
describe what he has seen or heard
perhaps to moralize on it, or to inves
t. with a certa relation to the spiritu
ii world. IN Il word, modern poet
are realistic, fanciful and charming
perhaps, but always purposive. She
Iey, too, possesses this power, but Col
leridge made by far the easier flight
Shelley has most need OF artificial SUP
ports, deals in egations-shadowl
.nessential figures floating i'll dim V;
por-the conventional apparatus of I'll
yhostlv world. The number of adj q
lives beg inning in uu and dis that She
lev uses is remarkable. But Collerlde
places the scene square before you-r
dim vapors pass across the foreground
The phantom ship drives across ii
sun, YOU soc that it is a skeleton ship
And straight the sun was feekcd with ba
Heavens mother send us grace,
As if through a dungeon CRATE he peered,
# With broad and burning face.
II The poet SEXES inst net vely on u
5 striking points. As a good narrat